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Wednesday, June 2, 2021

THIRD FINGER, LEFT HAND (1940)

Myrna Loy, on a break from her final (largely uninspired) six pic run of comedies with William Powell, co-stars with Melvyn Douglas, stuck in an even longer series of underwhelming rom-coms, as M-G-M tries to make NINOTCHKA out of a sow’s ear.*  Conceptually, not a bad idea: Manhattan magazine editor Loy pretends she’s married to an absentee husband to keep unwanted attention at bay, frustrate a randy publisher & stay the hand of his jealous wife.  But a meet-cute with Douglas’s MidWest artist, in town to see a gallery owner, leads to a brief affair that has Loy thinking twice about her life choices.  Then he discovers she’s ‘married.’  Huffy at being taken for a ride, things are made worse with misunderstandings & phony explanations before Douglas figures to make things really uncomfortable by posing as the fake husband.  If only second-rater Lionel House’s script followed thru on any of its plot lines or comedy arcs, instead of dropping them after scoring a gag or two.  Or if Robert Z. Leonard’s direction had pace or visual interest.  Must M-G-M country homes  always look like foreign embassies?  Things are just as wasteful among the strong supporting cast, even Lubitsch fave Felix Bressart (between stellar turns in NINOTCHKA and SHOP AROUND THE CORNER) is given nothing to work with.  (The gag?  He’s been writing fake letters from the nonexistent husband.  One more dropped bit.)  Even auto-pilot needs someone to turn it on.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: When done right, great romantic comedy looks so effortless, you imagine it is effortless.  Good luck with that!  Ten times harder than just about any drama.  For Loy in the form: early THIN MAN pics, or partnering Cary Grant (and Douglas) in MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE/’48.  OR: *Douglas against Garbo in Lubitsch’s NINOTCHKA/’39 for an entirely different level of achievement.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/12/ninotchka-1939.html

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